


Dreams

by Schattenfeuer



Category: Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Gender-neutral Reader, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, Reader-Insert, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26062489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer
Summary: You always believed that your dreams had a certain meaning to them, if not to you then for someone else.
Relationships: Noel/Reader
Kudos: 3





	Dreams

People always said you had a lively imagination, especially as a child you would just go on and on, babbling happily about the friends you had made in your dreams, about magic and angels and demons. It disturbed your parents ever so slightly to have a young you take the word demon so easily in your mouth, but the more you told them, the more they discarded those tales of small, grand adventures as a child’s bubbly dream. And no matter what you told them, they just patted your head and told you to go outside to play and let the adults talk among themselves. 

It was their loss in the end, you decided, shrugging your shoulders and just going along with your day, in and out until it was time again to sleep. Unlike most children in your age, you were not scared about being put to bed early, you weren’t disgruntled, quite the opposite, you were excited, for it meant you could play with your other friends again, could watch them do magic and other interesting things. You could never direct where you would end up, but no matter where, there was always someone to play with. Sometimes you had an exciting playdate with three brothers that couldn’t be more different, other times a boy slightly older than you showed you how to climb on trees, held you up with a warm smile in his red eyes. A few times, you had visited a castle between the clouds too, there your playtimes were more quiet, the pretty boy with his long, white hair would huff and puff, but still show you how to read his books, he would show you small sparks of colorful magic and explain things that seemed to elementary to his world, while you returned the favor and told him stories about your world, that always stopped his angry glaring and turned his cold gaze into bright curiosity.

As you closed your eyes this time, you couldn’t help but feel excited too, who would play with you now? You hoped it would be the nice, golden haired man, he was always around in the beginning, showed you where to go to meet new friends before leaving you with the words of having a lot of fun and that he couldn’t wait to meet you again. You never found it strange that he always knew your name and he never seemed to be mad that you forgot to ask for his. You were quite the energetic child anyways, always talked about the more important things, for example how much you liked his hair, it reminded you of sunshine and his smile, which grew wider at your words, of a summer afternoon. 

This time was no different, he waited for you at the entrance to your dream, holding out his hand which you took eagerly. You chatted away happily, talked about how much fun you had today and that you couldn’t wait to meet your new friends. He kept asking you mundane but so very important questions, all while dressing your pyjama clad form in a warm coat and fur rimmed boots, he smiled and tapped your nose, pulled the seam of your cap down over your eyes and when you pushed it back up again, you were alone in a snowy back alley. 

You should be scared, alone in the dark, but you weren’t. It was always like this and you felt warm and safe, even when snow and ice crunched under your boots as you skipped over the cobblestone, up until you reached a single bench. On it, you found the most pathetic sight you had ever seen in your young life, a boy, younger than you, was curled up around his own knees, shivering in his too thin coat and with pale hands already frostbitten and reddened from winter’s aggressive bite. 

“Hello!”, you chirped, wondering if he was your new friend for the night. Not hesitating, you slipped next to him, started to pad the snow gathered on his shoulders off, to dust off his silvery hair like it was the most normal thing in the world. He looked at you, wide eyed and confused as you just started to ramble about how pleasant it was to meet him, that you hadn’t seen him before, you asked him if he was cold and before he could even answer, you had unrolled the bright red scarf around your neck to wrap it around his, crowning his small form with your cap. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?”

Taking his cold hands into your own, you gently rubbed them, blew your warm breath on them to chase away the lingering presence of winter and ice and coldness. His confusion slowly melted away, just like the ice crystals that had gathered on his cheeks and he gave you a shy smile that made your young heart soar in delight, you edged a bit closer, voice lowering to a conspicuous whisper when he asked for your name.

“It’s a secret”, you said, winking playfully as he frowned in confusion but that was soon enough forgotten as the night went on and you slowly thawed him out of his lonely, icy shell. Younger you had a tendency to skip over the important parts in order to get straight to the fun parts, you didn’t find it strange that a young boy was sitting outside alone on a bench in the middle of winter, you just saw a chance for a new friendship. You also forgot to ask where his parents were or why he had looked like he wanted to cry and held onto your wrist so tightly when the time for goodbye came. “I will visit again!”

You promised as you took the hand of your golden haired friend, winked back at the boy who looked so lost in your red scarf and too large cap. Your friend asked you if you had fun this evening, while rubbing your reddened hands gently, while taking the long coat of you in a room filled with pillows and strange things. You stared out of the window, at the golden swirling galaxies and answered absentmindedly that you enjoyed this night especially. So lost in the wonders outside that magical window, you did not notice the shadow that fell over your friend’s eyes. 

After that night however, it appeared as if your parents were fed up with the talk about angels and demons and magic. Especially since you had grown out of the imaginary friend phase some time ago, they pulled you along from one doctor to the next, ignoring your pleas to not take away your friends and your dreams, you promised that you would behave, but it all fell on deaf ears. You were diagnosed and dissected, had to answer strange questions and tell your stories so many times over to so many different people that at one point, you point blank refused. 

You didn’t have many dreams after that anymore. It might be the fault of those colorful little pills that your parents forced you to take or it was the result of the stress of disappointing them weighing down on you. Either way, you rarely saw your friends anymore and the more time passed, the more convinced you became that this had really just been your imagination running wild. By the time you became a bit more rebellious and refused to take your medicine, you were already in the middle of school, you started to gather them under your tongue and dispose them afterwards in the toilet when your parents weren’t looking. 

That night after you fell asleep, you were greeted by a golden haired, young man, all smiles and sunshine, he welcomed you warmly and by your name, said that he had missed your visits, that you missed a lot in your old friends lives. You grew shy, because, even though you remember his smile and his warm presence, you could not call him by his name, he laughed as if reading out your thoughts from your forehead and winked at you, asked you if a name was really that important. You shook your head and took his outstretched hand like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

Getting reacquainted with your friends was awkward and you failed to reconnect to some, too many things had happened and too much time had passed, some welcomed you back in their lives with a smile and open arms, but most had grown out of the play date phase, just as you had. It saddened you quite a lot, since you had spent your entire childhood at their sides, but you couldn’t force them to let you back into their lives. Most of the time you started to spent exploring the towns and outskirts of the lands with the sunshine haired man, you asked him so many things and you learnt so much, that sometimes the facts started to bleed into each other, earning you a sharp gaze from your parents when an old, familiar word slipped over your lips at the breakfast table. 

You barely managed to avoid a big argument about your silent rebellion against your parents and got out of them controlling your every step by the skin of your teeth. But you were rewarded for your persistence, for you were reintroduced to another of your friends, one that didn’t push you away this time around. Your friend lead you to a village full with strange men and women, they scared you a bit, because their eyes told stories of violence and lack of morality, but you trusted his guidance, entered the ramshackle hut without hesitation when he pointed towards it. Inside, you found a picture of misery, the air thick with sickness and the stench of sweat, while on the bed you saw the curled up shape of a young man, a few years younger than you. You only recognized him by his hazy, red eyes and the way they lit up with a familiar spark of dim joy. 

“H-hey there”, you barely managed to press out, he looked so miserable, curled up on his side with fever wrecking his small frame. Almost automatically, you reached for him and pressed one hand against his drenched forehead, flinched at the heat that bit your skin. He murmured something inaudible and only his weak grip on your wrist kept your hand there. That and the way he nuzzled into your cool touch. “Remember me? It’s been a while.”

He laughed softly, a sound thick with pain and delirium, but it was still there, that shy smile he had given you that very night, when you had shared your scarf and cap with him, when you had told him silly stories about your mundane everyday life. Now that you thought back, this situation was beyond bizarre, yet neither of you made a move to push the other away. Instead you sat at the edge of his narrow bed and he crawled closer, resting his head on your lap, while you brushed away his soaked bangs and pearls of sweat from his skin with a wet cloth. Humming a calm melody, you thought how peaceful this moment was, how none of you needed to speak, just then he finally gathered enough strength to actually croak out a question. 

His voice was as weak as the rest of him, yet you responded cheerfully, smiling and winking at him, when he inquired how you had gotten here. 

“Well...it’s a secret~”, you said, one finger pressed against your lips in a funny little gesture to indicate your silence. He wouldn’t believe it either way, you weren’t naive children anymore and while you lacked the cynism of fully fledged adults, fairy tales were not the way to go here. “Maybe I will tell you some other time.”

You wanted to say so much more, wanted to take away the pain he was in, but the door was thrown open, showing your dishevelled, golden haired companion of old, looking wide eyed and out of breath, behind him you saw spells flying through the air, weapons flashing in the dim light of torches. You had to go, now, your friend shouted, grabbing your hand and yanking you off the bed, before you even had the time to protest. All you could do was throw one last gaze over your shoulder and what you saw broke your heart, for your sick friend was reaching out for you, missing your hand by inches alone, then you were gone and he was alone again. 

When you woke up that morning, you suffered a breakdown, one that had you crying uncontrollably and one that concerned your parents enough to send you into a hospital to calm you down and have you looked after. The medication that the doctors and nurses there fed you was heavy handed and left you in a foggy state of mind for years, you were functioning but it wasn’t living. And his eyes, those hazy, red eyes haunted you every single day and night, wherever you looked, you expected that heartbroken look to pierce your sedated heart any moment. 

One moment you were adaze, laying motionless in your hospital bed, while watching the coppery red moon outside the window, the next you were falling, like Alice you fell, down and down an endless rabbithole, filled to the brim with shattered memories of old playdates and children’s laughter from a time before pills and syringes, before parents concern and doctor’s orders. Closing your eyes, you simply accepted the bizarreness of this all, this wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to you, this was just another of your dreams, only this time around there wasn’t a golden haired friend to take your hand and guide you through the twisting ball of yarn that was your imagination. 

You landed on a field of herbs like a fallen star, the impact stealing away your breath and leaving you to count the stars at the actual night sky, as you rolled onto your back, aching and breathless, but feeling so very alive that you couldn’t hold back the hysteric giggling from bubbling up your throat. Twin moons and many, many strange, different constellations of stars twinkled back at you and you reached out, traced them with the practiced ease of old memories, their names long forgotten but not their shapes. And just when you thought you were completely alone here, in this garden too perfect to be created by hand, someone’s shadow fell over you, a silhouette loomed above you, complete with the wet gleam of sharp eyes. 

“How did you get in here?”, a familiar, apathetic voice asked and you couldn’t help but chuckling, winking up at the figure above you. He looked at you, disbelief and hope blooming for just a second before he somehow managed to cut them off, the light in his eyes fading and them cooling back into blood tinged shards of cut gemstone. 

“Why, it’s a secret~”


End file.
